That's also a 14" MBP that supports multiple external monitors natively. That dock likely won't support more than one display on a M1 MacBook Air or M1 13" MBP that only supports one external display.
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Anker's Latest USB-C Docking Station Brings Triple-Display Support to M1 Macs
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That's also a 14" MBP that supports multiple external monitors natively. That dock likely won't support more than one display on a M1 MacBook Air or M1 13" MBP that only supports one external display.
It's a 14" MBP M1 Pro. I haven't tried plugging in my LG 32UN880-B with the pair of ASDs but I could try during the weekend and report back but pretty sure it will work.
I'm thinking the problem is that this is not a Thunderbolt dock, but rather just a USB-C dock.
The previous-gen Dells that we use in our office had USB-C docks and had the same limitation (in fact, even worse, they sometimes get overwhelmed running 3 monitors at 1920x1200 and Gigabit Ethernet and tend to "lock up"). From what I've seen with docks, most USB-C docks are actually rebranded versions of the same thing (including using the same DisplayLink software), so this Anker dock is probably much the same.
We upgraded to Thunderbolt docks with the latest laptop refresh, and these issues went away.
That would be cool if you can. I have three LG GP950s and the same MBP, but my cheapo USB-C dock limits me to one 30 Hz display.
On a pre-covid triple monitor setup, I had one monitor dedicated to e-mails and billing entries on my desk. That monitor was set as the 30Hz monitor through the dock and the refresh rate was tolerable for that very limited use.
I wouldn't use it for anything else (not even Excel or other more "static" use) for very long.
Can you tell me where to find the information that that dock supports two 5K displays? I can't see it in their website. I've been waiting for the Caldigit TS4 but it's never available. Thanks!
4K at 30Hz? Insulting. There are lots of people that don't know how unusable that is and will get screwed by this product.
You need a dock to run multiple ASDs? I thought part of the point of using native Thunderbolt to power displays is that they can be daisy-chained.
People here just love spending money on overkill monitors. When you actually do work and not play in paint 2K/QHD is a real working resolution natively. No one is using 4K native and doing actual work/coding. Scaling always has downsides. This is exactly what a working person wants 2 QHD monitors at 60hz. I wish it was a bit cheaper this would be perfect on my M1 Air to drive my two screens.
QHD is the perfect sweet spot to run native 27-32 inches. My company finally got annoyed with people complaining about scaling issues and just asked me what my specs were since I bring my own monitors where ever I work. They replaced all the monitors matching my specs 2K 32 inch. No more complaints.
Maybe someday scaling issues will be fixed across the board but I have been saying that for the last 10 years....
QHD is the perfect sweet spot to run native 27-32 inches. My company finally got annoyed with people complaining about scaling issues and just asked me what my specs were since I bring my own monitors where ever I work. They replaced all the monitors matching my specs 2K 32 inch. No more complaints.
Maybe someday scaling issues will be fixed across the board but I have been saying that for the last 10 years....
Someone who has a M1 machine that can't support a 3rd display any other way?
30Hz isn't great for any sort of interactive work (if only because the pointer disappears when you move it) but there are lots of cases for being able to display static information (e.g reference material, online documentation for coding etc. previewing a website that you're working on, monitoring the progress of one application whule you're using another)... or you could even (gasp) use a "2k" display and get 60Hz.
I thought people were being overly sensitive with the 30Hz on here. So I decided to swap my current monitor to 30hz @ the same resolution. And I was wrong. I have 2 identical monitors side by side and I have one at 30 and one at 60. That 60Hz is honestly essential. The scrolling is choppy on the 30Hz and blurry. The 60Hz is perfect.
I don't think I could get used to this at all. It's like getting used to a cable modem and going back to dialup. I may have been able to tolerate it in the past, but now that I've been to the promised land, I'm never going back!
I don't think I could get used to this at all. It's like getting used to a cable modem and going back to dialup. I may have been able to tolerate it in the past, but now that I've been to the promised land, I'm never going back!
I feel like it's worth mentioning that driving displays over USB-C is laggy and horrible to use... but then if you're used to a Magic Mouse you probably don't know any better.
How do you know this, considering that the article specifically states that it's using MST?
edit: Nevermind. Anker specifically calls it out. How did Mac Rumors get it so wrong?
Because (without DisplayPort 1.4 and displays that use it) you can't drive a 4k@60Hz display Alt Mode and a USB 3 device (at 5Gbps) off a single USB-socket without going to the much more expensive Thunderbolt or USB4 protocols.
What is not so obvious is why almost every "USB-C hub" on the market has to include a video output and why there's no alternative of the good old, cheap and cheerful, USB 3 type A hub with USB C connectors. I think the awkward truth there is that - once you count in the PC using market - the "standard" connector that the majority of people have on the ends of their peripherals is still USB-A.
Reality is that - unless you pay the premium for Thunderbolt or USB 4 devices - the "USB" you get over a USB-C connector is the same old USB 3.1 that you get over a USB-A connector, so there simply isn't an incentive to switch. Nothing much seems to have adopted the USB 3.2 standard (which allowed 2 USB 3 streams over a USB-C connection) and even 3.1gen2 is only really needed by the most expensive external SSDs.
If you really want multiple downstream "full speed" USB-C then there are USB4/TB4 hubs from Caldigit, OWC etc. that will do just that - at a price.
i owned anker products and their anker apex 12-1 just telling you guys don’t trust anker bad customer service and never fix the glitches they have and hardly ever have firmware updates
Anker can't ever quite hit the mark on all these docks. For the longest time they never passed enough power. This one at least is at 100W but doesn't support 4K for all the monitors. Anker makes lots of great products but Mac docs are always lacking in key areas.
Choppy scrolling, yes, but if it's blurry somethings gone wrong.
I went to check and realised that my secondary display has been running at 30Hz for a while for some reason and I hadn't noticed so, really, YMMV. Yeah, if that happened to my primary display then I'd have noticed.
I think you are absolutely right. What it looks like is a dock that is running one video (the first HDMI port) off of SST (single stream transport) rather than MST. And the other two video ports (HDMI 2 & DP) are off DisplayLink.
Users should be aware that the DisplayLink technology would require driver installation, and it will put an overhead workload on your CPU as it uses a video compression technology to be able to carry video on a standard USB data links.
The dock should work fine for people who do not need as much horsepower in resolutions on their monitors. But this is not a plug and play dock.
I am working on a 4k display (Intel and M1 MacBook Pros) for years and never had any "scaling issues". What do you mean? Take good cables, use DisplayPort if possible and understand what HiDPI is.
Anything under 4K on 27" is blurred and annoying, even if you work with office or as an developer.
Even though a hub may have multiple connections for USB ports (hub), one needs to realize that there is still only one cable connected to the computer.
So say for example, the upstream speed from the dock to the computer is 5Gbps, then all ports on the dock would share that 5Gbps bandwidth, including the video stream.
This is where the value of a technology like Thunderbolt comes in. The upstream speed is 40Gbps. So this provides a lot more bandwidth for all of the ports on a Thunderbolt dock to share that enhanced bandwidth.
